Powering Korean Island with Sunshine & Breezes Costs Each Household $8,000 per Year

One small island’s dream of energy self-sufficiency (At a cost of $12 million!)Not a lot of people know that
Paul Homewood
11 August 2016

From the Korean news site, The Hankyoreh:

At 0.85 square kilometers, Gapa Island is less than one-third the size of the Yeouido, an island in the middle of Seoul (2.94 square kilometers). Gapa is located between Mara Island, the southernmost point of South Korean territory, and Moseul Port on Jeju Island. But this tiny island is undertaking a revolutionary experiment in energy independence.

The project to bring energy self-sufficiency to Gapa Island was launched in 2011. The reason that the island was selected for the trial project is because of its small size, its plentiful wind power and solar energy and its proximity to Jeju Island.

A total of 14.3 billion won (US$12.49 million) was invested in the project. Two 250kW wind turbines were installed, along with 174kW solar panels in 49 locations. Other installations included an energy storage device, a system control center, power conversion equipment and remotely controlled power meters. The electricity produced in this way powers the households on the island, four electric cars and a desalination plant.

Since the energy self-sufficiency project began, the lives of island residents have changed dramatically. The population of the island is 178 people in 97 households, and solar panels were installed in the 49 households that are not composed of elderly people (65 years old and older).

Before the project began, electricity cost between 120,000 and 130,000 per month during the summer, but now, the price has fallen to one fifth of that, between 20,000 and 25,000 won. There has also been a major boost in the number of tourists, which rose from 10,000 in 2008 and 40,000 in 2011 to 110,000 in 2015.

“At first, we weren’t satisfied with the results of renewable energy. Now, though, it’s benefiting us in two ways: our electricity bills are lower and the number of tourists is higher,” said Jin Myeong-hwan, the 55-year-old mayor of Gapa Island.

Between Apr. 23 and July 12 of this year, Gapa Island had a cumulative energy self-sufficiency rate of 42%. The island is meeting 32% of its energy needs from wind power and 10% from solar power. The rate climbed above 50% in May, but fell again in the monsoon season. The other 58% of energy is still supplied by diesel generators.

The combined generative capacity of wind power and solar power is 674kW a day, which is already much higher than the island’s average daily energy need of 142kW and its maximum need of 230kW. The problem, however, is that the supply of wind power and solar power is not stable. For this reason, surplus power is stored in the 3.86MWh energy storage system, but this can only be used for up to eight hours.

As the energy self-sufficiency rate of 42% shows, Gapa Island is less than halfway to its goal. It will have to raise the rate to 100% to attain true energy self-sufficiency.

“If we doubled the capacity of the current energy storage system, we could supply energy for up to three days and raise the self-sufficiency level to 100%. But to do that the current price of energy storage needs to drop by half,” said Hwang U-hyeon, head of the new industry team for the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO).

Now I don’t want to spoil the party, but there is one tiny little problem that our Korean friends seem to have overlooked!

According to the article, $12.49 million was invested in the project, on an island with just 97 households. That makes $128,763 per household.

Now I somehow don’t think that the islanders had quite enough money in their piggy banks to afford this.

Even without interest, this would work out at over $8000/year for every household. It also seems that, apart from the desalination plant, there is no industry to speak of, which would of course have pushed the figure much higher.

It is little wonder the islanders’ electricity bills have come down, because the capital cost of the project has been paid for by Santa Claus.

They might just as well have just as well have bought a few million AA batteries, and achieved the same results. But it would not have been very practical, would it?Notalotofpeopleknowthat

Comments

I started a petition “SA PREMIER JAY WEATHERILL : Demand the resignation of the Energy Minister for HIGH POWER PRICES CAUSING SA’s JOBS CRISIS and also 15,000 household POWER DISCONNECTIONS, frequent POWER BLACKOUTS and the JULY 2016 POWER CRISIS” and wanted to see if you could help by adding your name.

Precisely the con trick the average punter falls for when it comes to his “free” or near “free” solar PV system. In fact it is paid for out of the capitalised value of the Small-scale Technology Certificates (STC) his system generates, the cost of these STCs (around $40per MWh) being recovered by the purchasing electricity retailer who adds the cost directly to the retail electricity bills of the neighbours of our PV solar power system punter.

Mind this is not the only additional cost flowing to electricity bills arising from PV solar, because as with wind generation, the power grid also incurs the additional cost of balancing the random intermittent output of weather dependent PV solar.

As is the case with wind generation, without the market distortions produced by the RET legislation there just wouldn’t be any PV solar, because the average power punter just wouldn’t be prepared to pay the real cost.